[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

xxxiv INTRODUCTION
attain a moderate degree of certainty as to which is an earlier
and which a later record, but where it has not been possible
this -has been indicated. The second difliculty, that which
concerns the locality to which the notes refer, has been largely
overcome. A careful comparison of the native words mentioned,
of the paper on which the notes were written, and most helpful
of all perhaps, the identiï¬Åcation of individual natives to whom
reference is made by name with men and women noted down
in the fragmentary genealogies together with the villages to
which they belonged, have enabled me to distinguish with a
fair degree of certainty the material which concerns the north-
west from that belonging to the south-west, and to recognize
matter relating to Mewun as distinct from that which refers to
the neighbouring districts to the south. But it has not always
been possible to differentiate between those notes which have
to do with Lambumbu and those concerned with Lagalag, nor
to be certain whether others relate to Seniang or to its neighbours
of allied cultures‘ _
The difficulty created by the useof the native language oi or
native terms linked by a few English words has proved more
serious than either of those hitherto mentioned. I have been
able to become sufficiently familiar with the dialects of Seniang
and Lambumbu on paper to recognize that some of the notes
in English were translations of several of these native texts
but I must acknowledge regretfully that many of them are
untranslated, and, unless another expedition be made to the
island, untranslatable. It is not so much an ignorance of the
words in the language which makes them so, but an ignorance
of the culture of which that language is an expression. Of those
passages which comprised a mixture of Malekulan and English,
it was possible, by dint of comparing technical terms, to interpret
many with some certainty ; others there are from which I believe
myself to have extracted the correct meaning, but about which
I feel less sure; others again are very suggestive, but no more.
Where I have been in any doubt as to the signiï¬Åcance of any
passage included in the following pages, I have indicated this in
the text or in a footnote. Many statements, whose phrasing was
so obscure as to render the correctness of any interpretation very
questionable, have been entirely omitted‘ ,